Climate protection: Where reforestation bears social risks

A global assessment led by Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München (LMU) finds that roughly three-quarters of the estimated worldwide potential for afforestation and reforestation to remove carbon dioxide could face major social and institutional barriers. The study examines how poverty, food insecurity, insecure land rights, weak governance, limited forestry infrastructure and insufficient local support constrain efforts to establish and maintain new forests. Its findings indicate that the land technically suitable for forest-based carbon removal cannot automatically be treated as available for large-scale tree planting.

Forests created through afforestation, the establishment of new forests, and reforestation, the restoration of lost forests, have already helped expand global forest cover by more than 300 million hectares. Over the past decade, these activities have been estimated to remove around 2.2 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere each year, roughly equivalent to annual fossil-fuel carbon dioxide emissions across the European Union. These estimates describe the scale of forest-based removal to date, but they also underscore why the durability and broader feasibility of forest expansion matter for climate planning.

Wenkai Bao, an LMU geographer who led the study, and colleagues brought together evidence from real-world case studies with machine-learning analysis of extensive global datasets. Their global assessment compared the estimated carbon dioxide removal potential of afforestation and reforestation with social, institutional and economic conditions affecting those efforts. The analysis, published in the peer-reviewed journal One Earth, identifies poverty, food insecurity, insecure land rights and weak governance as major worldwide constraints, while limited forestry infrastructure and a lack of support from local stakeholders make it harder to establish and maintain forests over time. The research assesses potential and barriers rather than reporting outcomes from a new global tree-planting trial.

The geographic pattern differs substantially. The study finds fewer social and institutional barriers to afforestation and reforestation in Europe and China, while barriers are greater across Africa and in India and Brazil. This contrast does not establish that projects in lower-barrier areas will necessarily succeed or that higher-barrier regions lack ecological potential. Instead, it shows that estimated removal potential cannot be separated from the conditions in which trees are planted, land is managed and forests are maintained. Bao said credible climate strategies must pair afforestation and reforestation with efforts to strengthen livelihoods, rights and institutions, especially because much of the estimated potential lies in tropical countries facing these constraints. Co-author Julia Pongratz said reaching greenhouse gas neutrality will require at least tripling the global amount of carbon dioxide removed from the atmosphere by 2050, with additional forest cover playing a dominant role as technological removal options are scaled up. She cautioned that planting forests can complement, but not replace, broader climate action and sustainable development.

Subject of Research: Global socioeconomic barriers to afforestation- and reforestation-based carbon dioxide removal

Article Title: Climate protection: Where reforestation bears social risks

Article References: Climate protection: Where reforestation bears social risks. Original publication (Bibliographic details unavailable.)

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: Not provided

Keywords: afforestation, reforestation, carbon dioxide removal, climate change, land rights, food security, poverty, governance, forestry infrastructure, sustainable development, Climate, protection